There are no plans to dismantle the Arch of Friendship of Peoples in Kyiv

KMDA does not plan to demolish the Arch of Friendship of Peoples

@kriukoffvladislav / Instagram

The Kyiv City State Administration does not plan to dismantle the Arch of Friendship of Peoples in the capital’s Khreshchaty Park. It is a monument of local history, so it is prohibited by law to demolish or move it.

This is stated in the response of the KMDA to the request of the Ukrainian Air Force.

The administration also noted that there is nowhere to move the Arch at the moment. There is still no museum of totalitarianism or “Soviet history” in Ukraine; ideas about its creation are only being considered.

At the beginning of this year, in January, the KMDA working group decided to preserve the Arch. At the same time, they proposed to the Ministry of Culture to list it among the objects of monumental art.

The Kyiv City Council also did not make decisions about the dismantling of the Arch of Peoples’ Friendship. However, they plan to demolish the sculptural composition under it.

According to Kyiv City Council member Ksenia Semenova, the decision to dismantle the composition has already been made, but its implementation is complicated by the fact that it is also a retaining wall.

At the end of March of this year, the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance came to the conclusion that the Arch of “Friendship of Nations” in Kyiv is subject to complete dismantling, despite its recent renaming to the Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian People.

It was noted there that despite the renaming, the monument “represents Soviet ideologues and connotations” and therefore poses a threat to Ukraine’s national security.

Arch of Friendship of Peoples in Kyiv was opened as part of the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the creation of the USSR in 1982. In addition to the arch itself, part of the composition was a Soviet monument with two “proletarians” – a Ukrainian and a Russian.

In April 2022, the bronze sculpture of two workers was dismantled. During the disassembly, the head of the Russian figure broke off, which provoked a wave of memes on the Internet. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitaliy Klitschko, noted at the time that the composition installed next to it would be closed and later also dismantled.

On May 14, 2022, the Kyiv City Council decided to decommunize the Arch and renamed it the Arch of Freedom of the Ukrainian People.